The April Featured Poem “Car Racing Through the Rain ” is from Cloudbreak. I was grateful for the opportunity to visit many Planned Parenthood Northern California supporters and Health Centers around the Bay and up to the Oregon border. Three decades of commutes like these, when I was CEO, eventually wore me down a bit, I admit.

Car Racing Through the Rain

after “Sleeping Faces” —Robert Bly

The steel cage and straps hold me tight,
my leg straining, cramped,
back quirked and pained.
Eyes squint, blinking
in syncopation with wipers
clearing the windshield clouded with rain,
into the darkness of a two-lane highway
across the Bay wetlands.

Careening past random street lamps,
their watery beams only disrupt
my falling race through a black wormhole.
Oncoming cars only feet away.
Focus desperately
on the red tail of the car ahead
and faded white line. Ignore the dark water.
The car behind me is angry,

I am too slow.
Relentless rain stings the glass.
I am on the dropping edge between,
life and death,
hurtling past each machine,
trusting with mindless
faith they will stay in their lane.
I am only just a slight turn of a wheel,
just a phone call in dead of night,
just an unexpected diagnosis,
away from the ditch.
Drive blindly on, closer to home
and my husband and child—
faces in the dark.